A Writer's Rhapsody
by hscrooney
Summary: Peter Johnson is a successful writer. He never thought he'd be, as he struggled through high school, but he became famous for fictional accounts of him and his wife living life as greek demigods. Now, things he wrote in his stories are starting to happen in real life. AU: Percy is Rick Riordan
1. Probably (Cathedral)

Chapter One: Probably (Cathedral)

Snow wisps across streets, through buildings, winding underneath, around, and through the many crevices of New York City. The chipped rock of a cathedral proves to be a fruitful gathering spot, the snow collecting on a diagonal piece of rock directly underneath a gargoyle. This unusual snow collection was not noticed by any of the people inside of the cathedral, lost in their throes of merriment. It was a wedding. He hadn't wanted it in a church, and neither had she, but her mom had pushed and prodded until they found one that wasn't completely disgusting or exhaustively expensive. It was right uptown, near Columbia, where she had earned her PhD in architectural engineering. He had actually worked in Columbia- as a bookkeeper, while finishing some English courses at a local community college. That was where they had met, in fact. During one of her many checkouts or long lingers in the library, he had finally gotten the courage to ask him out. The first thing she told him was that she had been intending to do the same when he had walked over. He had cracked a smile, and decided to wait a couple of months before explicitly telling her he wasn't a student. He remembered a couple of dates later, when they had danced in his apartment, smiles unable to be pulled off of their faces. When she had graduated a year after they met, he hadn't stopped calling her "Dr. Crane" until she'd forced his mouth shut with a kiss.

He quite honestly hadn't known what to do with his utter exuberance until he decided to write about it. He hadn't done writing like that before, something that wasn't a half-assed critical analysis or a dumb personal statement where he basically repeated "my dad left after I was born" for five paragraphs. He pulled people from his own life and transformed them, gave them powers and special abilities. He accentuated and punctuated every small thing about them. His vegetarian friend George became a satyr, his affinity for swimming and deadbeat father made him a child of Poseidon, her divorced parents, intelligence, and overbearing mother made her a child of Athena. It was fun. He set it in high school, 'cause he always wished he'd met her then, when he had been pinned down and suffocated. It was almost cathartic, imagining a version of his high school where nothing had gone to shit. Imagining a version of himself that was talented, blaming his problems on his birth. Turning his least favorite teacher into a harpy and his favorite, the person who'd gotten him into Greek mythology to begin with, into the guy in charge of the Greek place. Which makes it sound like a restaurant. Which it wasn't.

She had read his first manuscript, first thinking it was a diary from high school, but after she found out what it was, devoured the entire thing in a couple of hours. When he had come home, he was greeted by a rabid excitement the likes of which he had never seen before. She encouraged him to send the manuscript to a book publisher. He was flattered. He also had a hunch that figuring out he was good at something which was so distinctively academic had narrowed their intellectual divide. He felt closer to her than he had been since he'd told her he wasn't a student, and so he sent in the manuscript to a couple of places. He never expected anything to come of it, and presumed he would either get a version where the entire thing was crossed out in red, or just a stamp on the top that said "Bad Book". To his surprise, every send-in was a yes, and they all seemed fairly anxious he would take another company's offer. He picked Disney-Hyperion, as they had offered him the biggest sum, and promised a cut of the profits. He then quit his job to work on the sequel. It so happened that neither of them left the apartment often. She had a studio in their apartment for her freelance architectural work, and he typically lounged on the couch, typing on his laptop. They both worked a lot, surprising for people with home jobs but she was a perfectionist and he was competitive so they didn't have much free time. Often, while he was still writing, and she had finished a blueprint, she read what he had written that day, smiling, laughing, and giving him tips. In September, the first book was released. When she had cracked open a copy, she had found that he asked her to marry him in the dedication. And then it was now. Revelry. Love. A massive cake. What more could you want?

George's legs had been getting hairy. He'd tried to ignore it, but it was true. He figured he just hadn't looked at his legs in a while, but after a couple of days the heat was almost suffocating whenever he wore pants. He tried to shave, but the razor broke on the thick hairs. He tried to get it waxed, but the waxer couldn't get the was to pull the hair out. "There's just too much", he had said in a thick Russian accent. "You have not been taking care of your legs". George thought that was probably true, but was this really what happened when you didn't look at your legs for a while? He'd had to call in sick when he had left the house, on a cold winter day, and gotten heatstroke from the pants he was wearing. This didn't seem reasonable. His feet were getting wider, too. They were becoming smaller and thicker, folding themselves into things that looked close to disks overnight. These wouldn't fit into shoes. When he had received the invitation to Peter and Ana's wedding, he knew he had to go. He custom-ordered expensive breathable fabrics from China, and when he tried them on, instant relief covered him. He could deal with this for now. But it was still weird. Still very weird.

As George stood to give his Best Man's speech, he felt his knees refuse to stay straight, wanting him to bend them slightly. He did not, forcing himself to stand how he had stood all his life, yet was so alien to him now. "I first met Peter in high school" he said. Peter chuckled; he knew where this was heading. "If you couldn't tell by that chuckle, Pete over here wasn't a very good student. But look at where he is now: a published author. A best-selling author! And married to the smartest person he's ever met." Ana smiled at that. "Not many people in high school saw Pete's potential. I'm just glad that he has the success he deserves. So," he said, raising his champagne glass, "To Peter". "To Peter" echoed the rest of the attendants. He sat down.

The maid of honor, Ana's college roomate Theresa stood to make her speech. "If you're unfamilliar, Ana has never quite had the best love life." she said.

"That's putting it mildly" shouted out Ana from the audience, to peals of polite laughter.

"Like I said. She's always had trouble with men. Or they've had trouble with her. Peter is a pretty cool person. But that isn't what gives me the knowledge that you guys match. It is that every day since she's met you, I have never seen her happier. I want you to be happy, regardless of who the man is. And you've never been this happy." Ana and Peter smiled. "To Ana!" exclaimed Theresa, lifting her champagne glass. The crowd echoed.

And then they were back in their apartment. Tired. Exhausted, in fact.

"Well," Peter said, "I don't want to do that again".

Ana smiled. "I need a drink,'' she said.

"We had like four glasses of champagne." Peter said.

"Whiskey?" she asked.

"How about water?" Peter retorted, being the reasonable one for once.

"Probably a good idea", she answered, collapsing on the couch in her wedding dress.

Peter went into the kitchen, grabbed a glass, and turned on the faucet. The water did not flow into the cup. It lifted above it, the water collecting in a blob above the kitchen sink. Peter turned off the faucet, and the water blob stayed. He rubbed his eyes. Still there. He poked it. The water immediately dropped with a jolt into the cup underneath, leaving an ordinary cup filled with water. He squinted at it. He was probably just tired. Probably.

New chapter Tuesday 12/10/19


	2. Cruise Control

**Chapter Two: Cruise Control**

The wave of water hit him, throwing him backwards forty meters, slamming into a waiter. Painfully, slowly, and deliberately, he came to his feet. She was watching him. She was worried. But she was safe. She was safe in the bridge. As he looked towards it, he sensed his stomach drop, as the wave of water charged again, but this time, not towards him, but towards the glass-enclosed bridge. The glass cracked with a loud sound, and he woke up.

Ana looked at him next to the dropped glass with a sheepish grin, like a little kid who's been caught but knows they won't be punished. "Sorry!" She said. "Didn't mean to wake you up".

He kissed her with a sudden burst of passion and smiled. "It was a bad dream anyway" he said. "And I'm always glad to wake up and see you." It was corny, but they both knew he meant it. And more than ever now, as the dream replayed in his mind. The floorboards creaked as Ana made her way over to the bed. "What's on your mind?" She asked. She was always good at reading people, and Peter seemed distracted.

"Nothing" he said with an air of nonchalance so conspicuous it made Ana chuckle. She cozied up to him in the bed.

"You can tell me", she said. "I'm your wife, aren't I?", she asked, doe eyes fluttering with mock naïveté.

Peter laughed, a full-throated belly laugh. "Alright", he said. "The dream was a little weird. Scarily."

"And?" Asked Ana. She wasn't going to give up now.

"Well, it was on the ship, for one thing. And water. There was water- it was attacking me." He said. "Like in my book, you know? The water was alive- and it was attacking me. And then it attacked you".

Ana looked at Peter. He didn't look like he had before, amused, laughing. He looked grim, worried. Roguish. Hot. She shook her head. She needed to stop being so in love with her husband. She looked back at him, and kissed him. "It's alright." She said. "I'm still here, aren't I?"

Peter cracked a smile, the same troublesome grin Ana loved from the second they met. "That you are", he said. He kissed her again. "That you are".

They woke up in the early morning, intertwined. In the light that streamed in from their verandah, Peter could see their stateroom in its entirety. He slipped outside while Ana got dressed and looked out of the balcony. The ocean waves cascaded against the bow of the massive cruise ship as it sailed forwards. It was sunny and hot. Absolutely beautiful. Ana joined him at the balcony. The view was gorgeous- not another thing in the water for miles. Nothing but blue ocean, created through with white peaks of ocean foam.

"Day three of fourteen". She said, with a smile.

"By the time we're done, d'you think this view will get any less absolutely perfect?" Said Percy.

"I think it's kind of like me", said Ana.

"Oh, really?", asked Peter, playing along.

"Yeah." She said. "It gets a bit more beautiful every single day".

They both laughed. "Never said it wasn't true" said Peter.

They breakfasted in the buffet on the top of the ship, sitting near a window with that picture-perfect view. "You know" Ana said, a few bites of waffle still in her mouth, "It's nearly impossible to fall off a cruise ship by accident".

"That's rather ominous", Peter joked. "What are you implying?"

Ana smiled. "That instead of taking the obvious opportunity I had to kill you in our stateroom,'' she said, playing along, "I would decide to taunt you until you knew it was coming?"

Peter shook his head in a mock display of disappointment. "You psychopaths, so predictable", he said. Ana laughed, and so did he.

Later, they lay poolside, lounging on chairs. They'd promised one another that to avoid their tendency to overwork, they would work for one and no more than one hour each day. The second book in the series was coming along at a fairly rapid pace. He had decided to include a seafaring voyage while they had been planning the honeymoon, figuring it would give him inspiration, but it was Ana that suggested that he adapt aspects of The Odyssey. He sighed. He'd gotten them off Circe's Island, but he couldn't quite figure out what came next. A roaring sound woke him out of his writing trance. He looked around wildly, then up, to see nothing but a tremendous amount of water about to bear down on him. Peter closed his eyes and let the water wash over him.

Dr. Charles couldn't walk. He'd never been able to. When he was born, his legs had been crushed, and he'd been in a wheelchair all his life. It wasn't so bad after a while. You learn to deal with things when they happen to you all your life. Recently, however, he'd been getting spasms. Weird, jerking movement; in his sleep, during class, even once while at a museum. The thing was, he'd been told by the doctors that his problem was he had no muscle tissue in his legs. If there was no muscle, what was spasming? What was keeping him awake at night, doubting his will during classes, making him manic and distressed? He'd made an appointment with a surprisingly busy podiatrist, but he doubted they could offer any answers. What was going on?

**A/N: Right, so that chapter's done. Was a bit rushed, sorry. I'm thinking about starting another fic, Piper/Annabeth as backpackers in Europe. Piper/Annabeth because I'm not going to write two Percabeth stories at the same time. Tell me if you'd be interested. I'll probably post at least the first chapter regardless. That'll probably be sometime this week, with the next chapter of this being around a week away. Review if you like it, or I'll almost certainly abandon it like I have everything else. Sorry this chapter is so short, also. I'm aiming for at least 1000 words per chapter and this is just that. Future chapters will be longer. And be more spaced out. But I kind of just wanted people to read it. **


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